Now, this is the story all about how / My life got flip-turned upside down / And I'd like to take a minute / Just sit right there / I'll tell you how ...

WE FINALLY FINISHED A FEW PROJECTS AROUND THE ROW HOUSE! Guys. I'm not going to jump into this and just pretend you care after we (I) took a few months off from blogging about renovations over at our humble row house. But I spend long stretches of time every day working alone, so if you think for one second I'm afraid of talking to myself then you got another thing coming.

That said, let me introduce the epic catch-up photo montage.

I'm going to warm you up with some a-day-in-the-life style photos before we jump Full Monty into the row house. For example, this is Pete wearing an over-sized hat at a Jersey City street festival in May 2014.

Now this is Pete demonstrating the wrong way to hold a dog. Notice the unfinished kitchen in the background (more about that later on in the montage).

In between street festivals and dog hugs we got our act together and semi-finished the laundry room.

We made one too many trips to home improvement stores, but ...

Oh hey there! We finished the kitchen (for the most part).

Then we celebrated the holidays. Mug reads: I like being friends with you! (Mug courtesy of Pete's mom's house / middle finger courtesy of Pete's brother Matt)

Right around the holiday time is when life gets real for me. It's retail explosion and I'm running full force all day to hustle my way into the New Year. Mid-January we planned a quick weekend getaway to Mohonk Mountain House and the morning we were set to leave Pete surprised me by proposing.

And yes, I did tell my mother we were engaged by sending her a text of me giving Ernie the middle finger. Adulting at its finest.

But then I was all like, "Oh hey, we are going to have the longest engagement EVER because -- surprise! -- I'm expanding the shop into a brand-new building across the street." (Pictured: yours truly and Hazel Baby owner Elizabeth Cain at the Charles & Co. construction site)

While new shop construction got underway, I decided to rearrange our living room -- and get a new couch, which Pete and his brother moved through the second floor window AGAIN -- as well as start renovations on the downstairs bathroom.

The End.

But it's not even close to being the end, because we also: semi-finished the downstairs bathroom, fixed up the backyard and then made plans to tear up the backyard, Pete changed jobs twice, I go a new/old car that turned into a massive restoration project, and we found a kitten in the rose bushes who is now just as useless around the row house as Ernie.

Guys, I have returned from my self-imposed blogging time-out to say this: February marks ONE YEAR in the row house. And it's kind of incredible that The Jersey City Independent re-launched their blog section and opened with the following article, which recounts my first night in the house alone when it was all bones and shadows (and cookies, I ate lots of cookies in bed and then woke up feeling like I went to beach because I'm a mess and the heat was broken so I was sweating and then I was kinda like a chicken cutlet all hiding in bed alone with my sugar safeguards coated in crumbs ... but I didn't put that part in the article).

ROW HOUSE RENOVATION: HOME ALONEFebruary 24, 2015

It was my first night sleeping in the row house alone. Pete was away on business, and I had just gotten back from work when the doorbell started chiming. Normally this wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy, except for the fact that I didn’t know we had a doorbell.I walked down the two flights of curvy stairs to the main floor and – because we still hadn’t installed a light – blindly stumbled through the living room to answer the front door.When we had first viewed the row house with Handsome Dan, our real estate agent, a man on roller blades had whizzed past and called out, “This is a nice block! You should buy it!” We’d later learned this visionary was Brady, a neighbor who lived across the street.Almost two months later, Brady stood on my doorstep in the house we did indeed buy. He thrust a plate of cookies into my hands. “Here,” he said. “I made you salted chocolate chip cookies because I know you still don’t have a kitchen. I stopped by earlier when they were hot but you weren’t home.” He scratched Ernie’s head and asked how the renovation was going.“Oh, you know,” I started. “It’s going. A little bit of a learning curve, but we’re having fun.”The truth was that the entire process had been an educational experience, from the first time we viewed the house with Handsome Dan to the moment we signed the paperwork, got the key and raced over to discover the water meter in the ground floor living room had been leaking and we now officially owned a semi-flooded historic row house.Did we have a plan on what renovations we were going to tackle first? Sure. But that was all thrown out the window the night we walked in to celebrate and instead had to start tearing up floor boards. That night Pete was still in a suit from work and my cell phone had barely any battery left. Other than the diminishing daylight streaming through the front window we had no illumination in the ground floor living room. We’d just opened the door when we heard the distinctive sound of water dripping. Pete took out his cell phone to shine a flashlight app in the general direction of the noise. To the right of the front door a pool of water spread out like a bloody crime scene from the injured utility meter. The wood floors buckled and bowed, undulating like broken body parts under the glistening moisture. The house was silent except for the eerie hiss of the water spitting out of the metal pipes.I looked at Pete with wide eyes. “What do we do?” I whispered.He took off his suit jacket and looked around for a place to put it. The house was empty, and we’d yet to bug bomb it. He folded the garment over his arm. “I have no idea,” he smirked. “But hey … welcome home, baby.”For the next three hours we didn’t move from the front room of the house. With the last of my cell battery I called my father, two plumbers (who wouldn’t take on any new clients) and finally our friend Freddie, who I should have called first because he’s the type of guy who knows a little bit about everything.

Freddie’s quick fix to mitigate floodingPete left to run to the home improvement store to buy a shop light and tools. I was alone for the first time in our new home. I stood near the front window in the dark looking out the window, listening to the hiss and dribble of the water. I felt helpless.Freddie arrived and within minutes had the situation assessed. In his no-nonsense way he looked at the previous owner’s curtains hanging in the window and asked, “You plan on keeping these?” I shrugged. He ripped them off the rod in one tug. He popped the access hatch to the basement crawl space and wrapped the curtain around the meter and draped it into the hole, explaining that this would siphon the water down and off of the wood floors. “I can’t touch this meter,” he said. “You need to call the water company and have them take a look at it. And these floors are screwed. You’re going to have to rip them up.”With that our first project was born. A few minutes later Pete arrived with supplies, and I used his phone to call our real estate agent. “Hey Dan,” I said. “I’m so sorry to call you so late but … who handles our water bill?” I’d rented apartments my entire semi-adult life so I’d never had to work with a water company. After several pleading calls I finally convinced someone to come out and take a look at the meter. Thankfully they were able to stop the leak. The water cut off — we finally walked around the rest of the house. We were wet and tired, and the initial excitement of being first-time homeowners was gone.

Getting some frustrations out by hammering raised nailsThe next day we arrived early with demo materials in hand. The objective: start fresh by ripping up all the warped wood and broken kitchen tile on the ground floor, then refinish (what we hoped) was antique heart pine sub floors. The vision was that the wood planking would run from the front of the house to back in one continuous flow. We considered this leak our renovation baptism and were determined to make the best of a bad situation.Using a crow bar, a demo hammer and a chisel, we got to work. Pete started ripping up the boards in the living room, and I peeled up the tile in the kitchen. Under the tile was a layer of cement board, but once that was up it exposed the original hardwood floors. To our surprise, the wood did indeed run from the front to back and was almost entirely intact. It was a small victory.Over the next week we worked on prepping the floor for sanding by using a nail set and hammer to tap in raised nails. We then methodically began prying up staples with a flat head screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Next came the fun part: we rented a drum sander and, working from 60 down to 110 grit sandpaper, walked the length of the floors grinding down the years of dirt, splattered paint, and everyday abuse. The last step was the hardest. Applying professional-grade semi-gloss polyurethane, we sectioned off areas and sealed the newly refinished floors. I had wrestled with the idea of staining the floors darker, but in the end I’m glad that we settled on a matte clear finish. The warmth of the antique heart pine planks naturally darkened with the four poly applications, and we were left with a rustic, yet polished aesthetic.

Grinding down years of neglect with drum sanderSo that night, standing in the dark with Brady, I remembered the first evening in the house and how unsettled we’d felt. I was again alone, but this time I felt a sense of wonder over how far we’d come in such a short time period of time. With the floors completed we’d thrown ourselves head first into renovating the ground floor, specifically the kitchen and bathroom. What Brady couldn’t see in the dimly illuminated living room was the piles of wood, sheets of drywall, overturned containers of screws, and general construction chaos that ebbed and flowed like sand dunes in the shadows.Ernie trotted over with a toy. “You mind if I throw this?” Brady asked politely.“Sure,” I replied. What he didn’t know was that there was nothing he could break that we hadn’t broken already. The kitchen was void of appliances and walls were crumbling, exposing brick and plaster. He threw the ball into the darkness and Ernie dashed after it, disappearing into one of the many crevices or nooks we’d created, all ripe with building materials and refuse. Brady gave me a hug and we said goodbye.Later that night, sitting at the end of the bed in the only habitable room in the house, I wondered how we’d gotten so lucky. Nothing was going as planned, but for every snafu we gained an adventure. Plus, if the utility pipe hadn’t broken, we probably would have never discovered and refinished the original floors. I ate a cookie and tried not to get crumbs in the sheets.

It's true, most of the home decor world is focused on the inside product. The fanciful decorations, the details, the furniture, the fixtures. Believe me, that's my jam too. But all of that loveliness would be nothing without the bones. And, at our row house, we have spent a good amount of time -- and money -- on making sure the structure is sound.

Next year we need to tackle a few large projects, mainly repointing the brick work on the front and back of the house. The weather has worn away the mortar in many spots leaving gaping holes which critters and water love to settle into. But ... that's next spring. This summer we needed a quick fix so Pete caulked some of the larger holes and I bought a fern. "Umm, how does a fern help the integrity of a property?" you may ask. Well, it doesn't. Not at all. But you know what? It looks awfully pretty. And sometimes when you can't afford a multi-thousand dollar repointing job you CAN afford a $20 fern.

That said, we decided to take on another quick-fix project before the end of summer. This is what the front of the house looked like when we bought it:

The Row House exterior at closing.

Sometimes when I dig back through my files of photos I can't believe we've been living in the house for six months already. Insanity. But I digress. So please direct your attention to the area directly around the door: busted metal screen, red door with kick marks and painted over glass, chippy exterior paint, and bulky mailbox.

I already spent some time replacing the mailbox. And so next up was the door. Pete and I knew we wanted a screen that locked and that offered the dual function of glass and mesh. So we looked around and selected a model from Home Depot.

(We also got a custom door made, but I'll unveil those details with the living room renovation.)

The initial plan was to paint the exterior trim matte black, but with all the doom and gloom going on at the threshold already, I decided that the framing around the door needed to pop but still maintain an illusion of being traditional. Our new handyman, Bill, was nice enough to suggest a few colors from Benjamin Moore and I wound up choosing the Litchfield Gray (a color closer to putty than a soot).

The final product: black doors, antique mailbox, and a fern.

The final detail for the door will be numbering and I'm working with a sign painter right now to discuss a few options. In the future we will repoint the bricks and paint the rest of the details (wood around the windows) matte black. I've already also started working with a landscaper to discuss a few budget-friendly options to increase curb appeal. All of those ideas are a few months off, though. Right now the bones are settling into place. The weather is cooling dramatically every day and we'll want to spend a bit more time inside fixing up the living spaces. But for now ... I'm pretty proud of our outside (even if I only ever enter from the back).

I was at Genevieve Gorder's house for her REAL GENEVIEVE magazine launch party and we were in her shower rubbing our faces against the subtly sexual textured tile (this was before a cocktail, mind you) and I mentioned that the row house renovation was going ... well, slowly. "Girl," she said. "Renovations take time. But I hope you're blogging along the way!"

"Yea," I said, guiltily. "I need to get back on that horse."

And so this morning, after a night spent ogling Gen's belongings and her creative use of space (you can see her genius on Genevieve's Renovation), I am sitting back down in front of the keyboard and dedicating time to Row House Renovation.

So next week I'm setting an ambitious plan to blog about the following:

Backyard landscape and fence completion

Sitting room molding and painting

Third kitchen cabinet installation

All decor and vintage curiosities thrifted this summer

Exterior painting

In the meantime, though, I'll leave you with the below image of Pete about to spray the dog in the face with the hose (more importantly, take a look at that finished fence!). Happy weekend!

Before I tell you what we've been working on in the last month I needed to post this completely badass portrait Michelle and Nicole gifted us with for a housewarming. Nicole is the talent behind She Can Lift A Horse, Michelle's sister, and my co-collaborator on many The Jersey City Project and Kanibal Home custom items (and the medium that transfers all of my late-night crazy design ideas into actual tangible goods). Michelle's the glue that holds my professional and personal life together. I probably talk to these two more in a week than anyone else in my life (even Pete, and we share a pillow). So you can understand that these ladies are pretty important to me and that makes this Addams Family-inspired illustration even more meaningful.

But more importantly ... THIS IS THE CLOSEST I WILL EVER GET TO ACTUALLY BEING DARIA, GUYS! I'm not joking. This has always been a dream of mine: to be rendered as a cynical cartoon. Let's also note that this is definitely the best my hair has looked in the last six months. Illustrated Me is fierce. Illustrated Pete is ... tall (his comment, not mine!). Illustrated Ernie is doing what Real Ernie does when he's not barking at imaginary noises in the house. This entire drawing is spot-on.Thank you, ladies. You make me want to have a more polished home and hair style.

First off: Are we almost really in August already? Holy cow ... where did the summer go? The other day we were puttering around the house and Pete casually said, "Hmm, I thought July was a slow month for you?" And quietly I thought, "What month is this anyway? Even more so, what day is it? Where am I? Should I be at work? Is this a dream?" It wasn't a dream: I had a day off. AND -- drum roll please -- we INSTALLED THE NEW NEW KITCHEN! But that's a post for next week. Right now I need to make an excuse for why I've been MIA and it has everything to do with the kickass food and drink festival happening in downtown Jersey City this Saturday.

So, want to know what's going on with the row house over a cold beer? I'll be running around all day on Saturday. Bonus: Pete will be there too. "I'm working this thing, right?" he's asked me every night for the last two weeks. He's way too excited to be volunteering to do manual labor on his day off but that's why we work so well together: I run around like a lunatic and he smiles and small talks and finesses all the rough edges.

Swing on down between 11am and 7pm this Saturday, say hello to Pete, scream my name as I sprint by, and enjoy a bounty of giveaways, food, drinks, and fun. And next week I promise to unveil all the progress we've made on the row house in the last few weeks. (Hint: it might involve a hammock and some havoc.)

Pete and I came to a relationship-saving conclusion the other day: when it comes to working on the house, we are stronger as separate entities than one unified force. Sounds counter intuitive, huh? Well let me explain: 1) as two people working on two different projects we can get more done at once, 2) we recognize our strengths and weaknesses and it just so happens that they are the opposite of each other, so when I help him with a project I mainly screw it up and cause double the work to be done and when he helps me with my projects it take twice as long because I flutter like a butterfly and it's hard to follow my line of progress (although it makes perfect sense to me), 3) working separately doesn't mean working alone, 4) holy shit, why are we not done with this renovation yet?

So we built a fence. Not between us. Jeez, we aren't emotional hippies. We LITERALLY built a fence. And technically -- with our new renovation strategy in place -- PETE built a fence. I watched the fence building and refinished a desk for our soon-to-be study.

BEFORE: Vintage Desk

BEFORE: Desk

Mise en place of restoration: wood glue for tightening drawer joints, a can of ebony brown Restor-A-Finish, a sanding block, a lint-free cloth, brushes, and a cold drink (one part seltzer / one part cranberry).

Start with a gentle sand ...

... meanwhile, Pete starts digging holes for the fence posts ...

... and this guy does what he does best ...

Next step: rip out the horrendous faux-velvet red lining and reinforce drawers.

The dresser was drying so I watched Pete level out the fence posts. Note the Lysol on the stairs, That was our defense against the bees that were swarming around Pete. (Surprise! The bees didn't give a shit about household cleaner.)

"Ugh, so much measuring!" I complained about fence post positioning that I had nothing to do with at all. Pete ignored me. "Are my roses going to be okay?" I wondered aloud to a sun-bathing dog and a sweating Pete.

The metal fence comes down! Pete rigged up some fancy leveling devices that he tells me is just standard and not fancy at all. Pssh.

The Element has been pretty awesome at hauling renovation materials. Every time we think it finally might be time to rent a truck this boxy beauty pulls off another home improvement store trip.

Oh we are so sorry to interrupt your sun time, Ernie. (In other news: the fence is halfway installed!)

Last weekend, if you love 'Merica, you celebrated by eating charred meat products and setting shit on fire to watch it go BOOM. I chose to embody the true spirit of our fine country and celebrated like our forefathers: by working my sweet Italian-American tush off. Nineteen hours straight, people. And you know what? I loved every moment of it. (Mostly because I got a walkie-talkie and a golf cart to zip around in.)

Set up for the Freedom & Fireworks Festival in Liberty State Park. There's nothing creepier than child-less carnival rides.

Okay, I was MOSTLY loving every moment. In this image I was soaking wet, freezing, and my face looks bloated. What did I eat that day? Do I always look like this? Where's my golf cart? Who am I kidding, I should be walking. ANYWAY ... it was a thrilling day (bloating and rain aside).

So between the shop, renovating the row house, The Jersey City Project events, and working part-time for the City I've had a busy summer. BUT Pete and I are still making progress on the house. Here's an overview:

Pete added a screen door to the back of the house so I would stop saying that we lived in the home from the Amityville Horror. There. Were. So. Many. Flies. Turns out, it had nothing to do with having the back door open and we just had a decomposing mouse under the floor boards. Lovely.

In an effort to hang some of our art/oddities on the wall, we took the advice of a friend and bought heavy-duty velcro for the Peacock Room's plaster walls.

Ta-da! The start of the insect gallery wall. (Side note: that entire night we heard loud noises coming from downstairs, but the alarm didn't go off so I figured no one was trying to kill us and it was just the Amityville pig having some fun. In the morning all the frames were on the floor. Major Velcro fail.)

The garden is growing out of control. AND I captured a butterfly in this picture (so suck it, Michelle!

And, lastly, Ernie is distraught by the fact that this upcoming weekend we need to rip out our new kitchen ... to install another new kitchen. Two steps forward, one step back. That's the motto of fixing up an old lady like this. BUT maybe this is the beginning of the end for the kitchen? Fingers crossed.

Big Poppa talks to his food. But with a name like Big Poppa maybe it's no surprise that he romances anything that crosses his plate.

It's something I warned Pete about when he first visited my family back when we started dating. "Listen," I said. "My father is a good guy, but no sharp movements when dinner comes out or you could lose an appendage. He's very serious about his meals. Also, if he starts muttering under his breath and talking dirty at dinner don't think he's making any advances at my mother ... that's just food foreplay before he cuts into his steak."

At first Pete thought I was being overly dramatic, but after a few meals with my family he got the hang of it: At Scalia suppers it's every man for himself.

That said, last weekend Pete and I took a break from the city, the summer, the house, and all the responsibilities that come with a heartbeat and a pulse to escape to Big Poppa's casa on the bay. As soon as we arrived Big Poppa started the engine on the boat and we headed to dinner.

It wasn't a shabby way to begin the weekend. When I told my younger brothers we were crashing overnight so we could go fishing in the morning they both yelled, "Not it!" When I asked what that meant, my youngest (who I helped raise from a wee bear cub) said, "You're not sleeping in my bed." So Pete and I slept on separate wings of a L-shaped couch in my family's living room.

The next morning we headed out to fish in Barnegat Bay, something I hadn't done in a very long time. "Hey, is that our minnow bucket floating away?" My dad called from the back of the boat. I was straddling the anchor at the bow mentally willing the fluke to latch their little jaws onto my line so I could be the Fish Queen and bring home dinner. "I tied up the minnow bucket, Dad! I'm not an idiot," I called back at him.

"Umm," Pete said, hoping up a wet line knotted to the side cleat. There was no bait bucket tied to it anymore.

"Nevermind!" I called, scrambling off the front. "Those are our minnows! Start the engine!"

After a few hours we quickly realized nothing was biting. So we headed back, loaded up the boat with beer and changed tactics: today we would be sloths and go to the beach. So off we went.

"Let me set the anchor. I don't trust you." Thanks, Big Poppa.

I don't want to know what they're talking about here.

Big Poppa asks Pete the same question every time he sees him. "Who's that girl on your arm?"

People say that after marriage it's important to keep the magic alive. Now, I don't know anything about marriages, but I can tell you about home ownership. And with all the construction, chaos, contractors, and cash depletion putting a damper on the sexiness of a relationship it's very important to send your loved one a special note now and then. To keep the fizzle, you know.

Here's one such example of the sexting that now happens between Pete and I:

Sexy, no?

Pete's response: Totally down to get a drink. And I am curious about what you mean. A lot of that concrete is needed.

I'm sure he's right, but what are we talking about here? Needed, as in the house will crumble and destroy our neighbors' adjoining row houses? Or, needed because Pete can't handle the mental anguish of another project right now when we have a living room that's tarped over like Dexter's killing spot and a kitchen that's being torn apart in one week? (Did I not mention the kitchen in awhile on the blog? There's a reason, people. And it's a big one. To be continued.)

Regardless of the "need" to keep the concrete, I saw the following image and now I'm obsessed with climbing rose bushes.

So I tried to convince Pete that climbing roses are SO WORTH breaking up the concrete in front of our house. Pete tried to convince me that roses are a pretty awesome flower because the right ones can be trained to climb over our patch of concrete and we can get the same look without breaking up and disposing of concrete that is heavy and essential to the stability and proper drainage of our home. I responded with silence.

Pete's message back to me: We're talking about the concrete right along the house front? If so I'm sorry but that has to stay.

After that text exchange I came home from the shop, dragged Pete to a business meeting with me at Park Tavern (to have that Guinness I really wanted) and dropped the conversation about the roses.

But I did not forget. Oh no, I did not. I know he's right about the concrete. Like that patch of stone, Pete is the stability in our relationship. I would run around like a caveman if it wasn't for him. That said, though ... This weekend we are spending Sunday finishing off a few half-completed projects. We will inevitably go to a hardware store. And I will purchase climbing roses and I will tie them up and I will teach those suckers to climb.

You see, home ownership is really glamorous, guys. And who says the magic dies after commitment and construction? Not us. Now, excuse me, but I have to go research how to get all S&M on some roses ...

Oh hey there, we're Kristen and Peter. We both build things (motorcycles and home accessories, to be exact) but this is largest project we've ever taken on ... mainly because we're finally restoring something for ourselves and that means we're going to want to go BIG on a very small budget. That said, we're ready for the adventure so join us as we undergo a row house renovation.